by Marinelli, Carol; Hayward, Jennifer; Stephens, Susan; Anderson, Natalie
His child, he knew with a bone-deep certainty, would have the love and stability he and Joaquim had never had in those early years before his grandmother had taken them in. They would never know a moment of the alienation and fear he had. Never doubt how much they were valued.
Which, he acknowledged, meant the right thing to do would be to marry Cecily. To provide his child with that stable environment he’d never had. It would cause waves, no doubt. His grandmother would lose her mind. But what else could he do?
He liked Cecily—admired her courage and strength. Their chemistry was undeniable. And since he’d never intended on marrying for love, since his vision had always been about practicality, about making that leap when the time came—well that time had clearly come.
Which didn’t necessarily ease the haze enveloping his brain…the apprehension gripping his insides at having his life plan sped up by about five years.
His father pulled him aside on the break. Tall, still handsome at sixty with the smooth good looks he’d parlayed into a career of mistresses, Estevao Salazar’s dark eyes snapped with irritation as he regarded his son.
“Nice of you to join us.”
“My apologies. I had something urgent to take care of.”
“Well see that it’s taken care of before tonight. We have dinner with the Scandinavians. I want this deal done.”
“I can’t make it.”
His father’s gaze narrowed. “Com licença?” Excuse me?
Alejandro lifted a shoulder. “Take Joaquim. It’s his deal. He can handle it.”
A ruddy flush lit his father’s cheeks. “What the hell is wrong with you, Alejandro? Where are your priorities? First your impromptu two-week vacation during our busy time, then this? What could be more important than this meeting?”
Avoiding a family scandal. Finding Cecily before she got on a plane.
“A personal matter.” He met his father’s fury with an even look. “Since you’ve had more than your fair share of those, I’m sure you’ll understand.”
* * *
Cecily paced her hotel suite, wondering what to do.
Perched high atop Madison Avenue, the luxury boutique hotel’s Champagne Suite gave its occupant the impression of utter invincibility. But invincible was the last thing she felt at the moment. In fact, she was highly unbalanced from her showdown with Alejandro.
She should have come here with a plan. She needed a plan. But the fact was she had no plan, a problem when she was dealing with Alejandro Salazar, one of the world’s most powerful men. Utterly in command of his domain today in his sky-high office, inherently sure of the power he wielded, he was clearly a lethally purposeful creature capable of doing whatever he needed to do to achieve his goal. Which was to destroy her family.
Not in the least bit hungry for the dinner she’d ordered, she crossed to the slate of windows that made up the entire front wall of the suite. Manhattan in all its glory sparkled back at her—a glittering spectacle so different from her beloved blue grass, she was usually entranced by it. But not tonight. Tonight nothing seemed to penetrate the numbness encasing her.
Her entire legacy had been built on a fabrication. Her parents had been lying to her this entire time. What it could mean for her family, her career, scared the hell out of her. To lose all her horses but Bacchus, to have the Hargrove name left in ruin. But there was another emotion present too…an insidious one that lingered at the edges. Disappointment.
She crossed her arms over the hollow feeling in her stomach. What had she expected? She’d known Alejandro wasn’t Colt—the man she’d fallen for. Had known he was going to tell her something she didn’t want to hear. She’d been through this before—the crushing disillusionment of finding out someone wasn’t who they’d pretended to be. So what was the problem?
She’d wanted him to be that man who’d held and comforted her? Who’d made love to her so passionately as if it meant something? She’d wanted to be wrong about him? God she really was a fool.
His words echoed against the walls of her mind. I tried to take a step back, you know I did.
He was right. He had made every attempt to stay away from her—to demonstrate this thing between them wasn’t wise. Had tried to cut things off time and time again. It had been her that had pursued him—her that wouldn’t leave it alone—her that had seduced him.
He might have deceived her, but she held responsibility for this mess too.
A plan would have been helpful.
The peal of the doorbell jolted her out of her reverie. Her dinner. Pushing away from the window, she crossed the cream colored carpet on soundless feet, unbolted the door and pulled it open.
Alejandro, his sophisticated three-piece suit replaced by a pair of dark designer jeans and a red polo shirt, stood leaning against the door frame. Her heart hammered in her chest. His jaw smoothly shaven, sensual, forbidding mouth relaxed, dark eyes focused on her, he was no less intimidating than he’d been in the suit.
Pulse skittering, every cell affected by his blatant masculinity, she swallowed past the fist in her throat. “How did you find me?”
“I had my driver follow you.”
Of course he had. She lifted her chin. “I told you, I’m done talking to you.”
“If you were done talking you would have flown home this afternoon.” His eyes glittered with a purposeful, black velvet cool. “We’re having a child together, querida. We need to discuss what comes next. Or,” he drawled, lifting a brow, “will you go home and casually mention to your father you’re pregnant with my child with no game plan at all?”
“I hate you,” she hissed. Particularly this new version of him.
“Go right ahead,” he agreed in that smooth, reasonable tone. “But we still need to talk.”
He was right. She stepped back, antagonism tightening every inch of her body. He strode past her into the suite, kicked off his custom-made Italian shoes and surveyed his surroundings.
“Nice suite.”
“It was all they had to choose from.” She watched as he walked to the bar and poured himself a whiskey. “Why don’t you help yourself?”
“This is about six hours overdue,” he murmured, picking up the glass, swirling its contents and taking a long gulp.
She wrapped her arms around herself as he lowered the glass and subjected her to one of those intense, utterly focused perusals of his. “Did you eat?”
“I have dinner on the way.”
“Good. You look pale. You need to keep up your strength.”
“Because I’m eating for two?” she scoffed. “You don’t have to pretend you care, Alejandro. My eyes are wide open now.”
He cradled the glass in his palm, a ghost of a smile curving his lips. “I do care, Cecily. Thus the situation we find ourselves in. I told you that before I knew about the pregnancy. In fact, everything I said to you in Kentucky was true, every emotion I expressed real. The only thing I lied about was my identity and that I had to do.”
Her stomach curled with the need to believe him. To believe something in all of this was real—that what they’d shared had been real. But she’d be a fool to take what he was saying at face value—even more of a fool than she’d already been.
He gestured toward the cream sofa that faced the spectacular view. “Why don’t we sit down?”
“I’d prefer to stand.”
“Fine.” He lowered himself onto the chaise, splaying his long legs out in front of him. “We are keeping this baby, Cecily.”
“Of course we are. I am,” she corrected. “I would never do anything else.”
“Good. And just to clarify,” he drawled, eyes on hers, “when I said we are keeping this baby I meant us. We are both going to be parents to this child, which means we need to be together to do that.”
She frowned. “
What do you mean together?”
“I mean we will marry.”
Her knees went weak. She slid down onto the sofa, a buzzing sound filling her ears. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” An amused smile twisted his mouth. “That’s why I suggested you sit down.”
Her heart beat a jagged rhythm. “You think we can base a marriage on a lie?”
“What we had wasn’t a lie. We had something good—you said so yourself…an organic connection it’s impossible to manufacture.”
“A connection you destroyed with your lies.”
“A connection I damaged with my lies. I think we can repair it.”
“How?” She lifted her chin. “I gave Colt—the man I thought I knew, my trust and he threw it away.”
“I will earn it back,” he countered. “The fact that you are carrying my baby changes everything, Cecily. I don’t intend to give up my rights to this child and neither do you, which means we need to make this work. And since making this work means we need to smooth the way with our families, find a way to defuse this feud, I will begin the process.”
“You said earlier your grandmother will never rest until she has her pound of flesh.”
“If we present our relationship as a fait accompli, she will have no choice but to give.” He frowned. “Perhaps she will be happy with an apology on the part of your family—some kind of public nod to the crime committed.”
She shook her head. “My father will never agree to that. He would rather drag it through the courts for all eternity than tarnish the Hargrove name.”
“Then he’s a fool,” he said harshly. “The Salazars could buy and sell your family ten times over. He would fight himself into the ground, only to lose.”
She pressed her lips together. “You could make this concession regardless of whether we marry. We could find some peace between the two families and co-parent this child together.”
His jaw hardened. “This child is a Salazar, Cecily. My heir. He or she will not be illegitimate.”
The utter implacability behind that statement made her shoulders sag. “Even if we can negotiate our way through this family feud,” she offered, “we hardly know one other. What’s to say we can even make this work?”
“Chemistry is ingredient number one for a good relationship.” His gaze speared hers, so familiar and yet so foreign. “We have proven we have that, both in bed and out of it. We have also proven we can be a great team. What more could you ask for?”
Love? That elusive thing she craved but wasn’t sure actually existed. For her at least.
“Practicality,” Alejandro murmured, sensing her hesitation, “is the thing to base a marriage on. Not this creative storytelling everyone is trying to sell these days of happily-ever-afters that don’t exist.”
“My parents were in love,” she said quietly. “That’s why he is the way he is, my father. Because he’s never gotten over her.”
“Isn’t it better to avoid that completely? To base a relationship on pragmatism and affection instead?” He shook his head. “I won’t lie and promise you things I don’t believe in, Cecily. But I do believe we can make this work. Think about how good we were in Kentucky.”
She didn’t want to think about that because she wasn’t sure if any of it had been real. That he wasn’t playing her right now to get what he wanted in his child. Except, she acknowledged, swallowing past the tightness in her throat, it was impossible to forget how patiently he had helped her and Bacchus reconstruct their relationship. How he had helped her reconstruct herself in those difficult weeks they’d spent together.
She studied the hard, uncompromising lines of his face. Could he really have manufactured the depth of caring he’d displayed? Why would he have when really, there’d been no reason for him to do it—every reason to do the opposite in fact?
“Why did you help me with Bacchus?” she asked.
“I couldn’t stand to watch you hurt,” he said quietly. “Even though I told myself it was a bad idea, even though I tried to make myself immune to you, you got under my skin.”
Her heart contracted. Emotions, feelings, she’d convinced herself had been a figment of her imagination, a product of her naiveté, flooded back in a storm of confusion. She would have preferred the cold, hard truth to this gray area she couldn’t process.
She pushed to her feet and walked to the windows, staring out at the lights dripping from the skyscrapers like tear drops hanging from their tall, imposing perches.
“This is insanity.”
“You aren’t in this alone, Cecily. I’m here.”
He who had never intended on saddling himself with a wife in this revenge plan of his…a notorious bachelor by anyone’s standards.
She turned around and rested her palms on the sill. “What about all the women you seem to possess for every different social occasion? I’m supposed to believe you will simply give up your bachelorhood to marry me because of our baby?”
He smiled, that whiskey-colored glimmer that did funny things to her insides lighting his eyes. “I find I like the idea of you as a wife. We would never be short of fireworks. I’m sure it would be more than enough to prevent me from straying.”
His arrogance hit her right in the solar plexus, right where Davis had torn her heart out. “If I am crazy enough to agree to marry you,” she stated icily, “which is doubtful at this point, I will not tolerate infidelity. Any hint of it and I walk.”
His gaze narrowed. Rolling to his feet, he covered the distance between them. “It was a joke,” he murmured. “My father is a serial affair artist. I would never do that to my own relationship.”
“That was the truth then, what you said that night about your parents’ dysfunctional relationship?”
“All of it was the truth.” His gaze held hers. “Now do you want to tell me why you have that look on your face?”
She shook her head. No way was she offering him her truths when he had withheld his.
“Fine. But you will tell me, Cecily, because we are going to repair these trust issues of ours.”
She sank her teeth into her lip, feeling far too vulnerable, fragile like glass. “If I were smart,” she breathed, “I would be getting on a plane right now and flying home, because this is not rational. I should not trust you.”
“But you do,” he countered softly. “You have from the beginning. You know me, Cecily. Trust me now. Do this with me.”
A haze of indecision clouded her brain. “I need time,” she rasped. “To process this. To figure out what to do.”
“Fine. You have a week.”
“A week?”
“It’s too explosive a situation to prolong. My grandmother wants action taken. Plus,” he added, “I am due to attend an anniversary party in England at the end of the month. If we are to be married, you should be the woman on my arm.”
“You mean you don’t already have one lined up?” She hated the sharp claws of jealousy that scored her insides. “I would have thought they’d be chomping at the bit to be at your side.”
“Funny that,” he murmured, eyes on hers. “I was having trouble getting a certain blonde out of my head. I kept remembering how she wrapped herself around me and took me for the ride of my life…those sexy moans she made when I took her apart…how sweet she tasted when I did.” His eyes were hot, black velvet now. “I find I want more.”
Her insides fell apart, a wild heat invading her cheeks. A satisfied smile curved his mouth. “We are good together, querida, you know we are. Now you just need to admit it.”
She lifted her hands to her burning cheeks. “I am not going to make a decision based on our…sexual compatibility. That would be foolish.”
“Then make it based on rationality. Your life has imploded around you, Cecily. You need me to take control an
d fix this. We need to make a home for this child. It is the only solution.”
A flustered denial bubbled to her lips. It died in her throat when he picked up his glass, drained its contents and walked to the door.
“Make a decision,” he said, swinging around to face her, “and let me know.”
And then he was gone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CECILY FED A chilled-out Bacchus the last handful of his favorite breakfast treat as she stood perched on the bottom rung of the pasture fence on a gorgeous, sun-soaked day at Esmerelda.
Clearly enjoying his sojourn from his intensive training schedule, her horse was utterly content grazing with his pasture mates. His mistress, however, was still fighting the crushing disappointment of watching her dream go up in smoke.
This morning, she’d called the head of the decision making committee to let him know about her pregnancy—that she wouldn’t be competing for a world championship team spot. It had killed her to do it—worse when he’d given her no idea if she’d have been chosen or not, a nudge of confidence she’d sorely needed in that moment.
And still she hadn’t told her father.
A whisper of apprehension fluttered in her belly. She needed to do that today, because today was the deadline Alejandro had given her to make up her mind on whether she would become his wife. A Salazar.
She knew what her decision had to be—she’d just been too afraid to voice it.
She couldn’t bring up this baby alone, not after she’d lost her own mother so young. Not when that void would always be with her and she wouldn’t do that to her child. Nor could she simply stand by and watch her legacy destroyed, her beloved horses taken away, everything her mother and grandmother had accomplished wiped away in a red stain of disrepute. Because Alejandro would win this battle—she knew he would.